This article examines the significant impact of using action research in a second cycle of learning in the same context and with the same participants. Particularly, the article examines the residual and emergent effects of cooperative learning on the participants in a second, sequential unit of track and field athletics taught a year after the first intervention. The results suggest that learning was both academic and social, and that participants felt the unit built on their prior learning about track and field because it was progressive, motivational and student-centred.